


What We Swear

by Oblivian03



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (the question is does Gwaine?), Gwaine-centric, Lancelot knows about Merlin's magic, Oaths & Vows, Post-Episode: s03e12-13 The Coming of Arthur, Wise Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 08:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30035706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oblivian03/pseuds/Oblivian03
Summary: Gwaine escapes from his sickbed after being wounded in a skirmish. Those tending to him are not pleased. Restless and longing for something unnamed, Gwaine doesn’t quite care.
Relationships: Gwaine & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwaine & Merlin (Merlin)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	What We Swear

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I clearly don't own Merlin. This is for fun. 
> 
> I'm not entirely happy with this story – definitely not my best. Admittedly, the plot and writing is a bit loose. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it.

His skin itched in a way it had not for what seemed like an age. He discretely adjusted the bandages around his middle, pulling at the cloth similarly bound round his right arm. Shrugging his shoulders, Gwaine loosened the already loose ties at the neck of his shirt as far as a common man’s decency would allow. The knight half entertained the idea of shedding it entirely alongside his trousers, but, like the futile adjustment of his bindings, he knew it would have no effect on that damnable itch.

“Sir Gwaine!”

A maid’s voice rang out with all the sweetness of young maidenhood and Gwaine pressed himself into a nook between two of the columns that lined the castle halls.

“Sir Gwaine, are you there? You must come back to bed.”

Eyes pinned on the mirrored surface of an ornamental suit of armour, the errant knight watched as the maid glanced down the mouth of the hallway he had taken and then continue onwards with a harried air about her. Gwaine exhaled in relief. Only recently escaped from his sickbed, he was not keen on being returned to it so soon.

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. Fleetingly the knight considered the wisdom of Gaius’ warning words about too much exertion too soon. Rest was what injured men required the old man had said. Yet, rest was not what sang to Gwaine and his shaking limbs.

“Damn it all,” the man muttered and stepped out to continue haltingly down the hall.

It had been an ambush of bandits that had laid him low this time round. He and Percival had taken two of the newest knights on their first patrol when a dozen armed men – and several equally armed women – had leapt from the foliage calling of vengeance and fury and death. What incident or war had stoked their ire Gwaine did not know, but he did not need to in order to understand the threat they posed to the knights and the innocent people in the nearby towns.

The resulting fight had been long, the bandits lacking the skill the knights of Camelot were renowned for, but more than countering that fact by their endurance and trickery. If they had not been on opposite sides of crossed blades, Gwaine might have admired their ingenuity. Admiration, however, was no guard against a feinting knife or overwhelming numbers. Distracted by the whirling edges of too many pointed things, a knife had punctured his mail deeply and cruelly enough for him to wonder if the blade had been ensorcelled. Another had taken advantage of his momentary lapse in defence to slice an axe down his arm. The only consolation was the fear on both the bandits’ faces when Gwaine failed to bow beneath their combined onslaught.

The knight ground his teeth and bared them to the emptiness around him. He had collapsed, it was true, his legs failing to hold him when his blood spilled too quickly. Percival had carried him like a fainting child to Gaius upon reaching the castle of Camelot. His white mare, the poor beast, had been stained red down one side as he had bled out upon her, but he had felled more than his share of enemies, pursuing the bandit leader deep into the woods and cutting him down with the final blow of the fight.

The trade of death was not something Gwaine took joy in. Yet, the heady rush of victory was hard to quell.

So too was the itch he now felt.

Foot after booted foot, Camelot’s most unruly knight continued doggedly on his path. There was no destination in his mind, but there ever so rarely was. There was just that sense, that itch, that call to be away from his bed, from his stifling rooms, from all the-

“Gwaine.”

Eyes drifting up from where they had pinned themselves on his own unstable feet, the knight looked up to see Arthur’s manservant blocking his path.

“Merlin!” the man cried, plastering a broad smile across his face. “It is a surprise seeing you here.”

Merlin crossed his arms. “I could say the same of you.”

Gwaine chuckled, straightening before Merlin’s eyes despite his aches. “It’s not a crime to wander these halls as one wills.”

“In this instance, Gaius would disagree.”

Gwaine blinked, the only possible tell in his well-crafted countenance. It was not surprising the old man had enlisted Merlin’s help. It was even less surprising his friend had found him so soon. “He also lauds the benefits of fresh air for one’s humors. I merely thought to try it for myself.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “When have you ever taken Gaius’ advice?”

“A man can start.”

“Yes, by turning around and marching back to bed before he finds you and skins you alive.”

Gwaine snorted, casually folding his arms up to lend support to his aching right one. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to escape Merlin’s sharp eyes.

“You’re in pain.”

“I’m a grown man, Merlin,” Gwaine replied, “I can handle it. It is only a twinge in any case, like an old man’s knees when it rains.”

The other man grimaced with a strange sympathy at the thought, as though he could imagine exactly how an old man’s knees could feel. Perhaps it was all that time he spent with Gaius. Gwaine himself could only entertain the notion based on the fleeting conversations from across the years with old men who had aching knees and the presence of mind to complain about it.

One of the bandits had been an old man and a vicious bastard besides. His face had been no less terrified in the face of death by sword.

Gwaine wondered if his knees had ached in the rain.

In the empty hall of the castle of Camelot, the two friends stood at an impasse. Gwaine still wore a smile, but it was quickly wearing thin. His arm ached, as did his middle, and sweat had made his back all sticky which did nothing to abate the itch. Clenching his hands could keep his arms from shaking, but his legs felt like young saplings in a storm.

Feet moving in the absence of thought, the knight glided past the manservant in a commendable display of steadiness. “If we are finished here, then we may as well go about our days,” Gwaine said, his gaze trained steadily on the other. “I’m sure you have things to do, places to be that matter more than little old me.”

“You are my friend, Gwaine.”

“And I understand that your duties must come before singing drunk in a tavern with friends.” The knight beamed a more genuine smile, clapping Merlin on the shoulder as a warmth bloomed in his chest with the echo of the servant’s words. Regret twined with it, that he could brush such a declaration off so casually when there were days he wished to drop to his knees and thank whatever gods existed for sending it his hapless way. “I am fine,” he added, voice pitched to reassure.

Merlin bit his lip, a small furrow worming its way onto his brow. When the knight began walking once more, urging his feet not to fail him as he moved backwards down the hallway, Arthur’s manservant followed him step for step.

“If you’re fine,” Merlin said at last, “Then you won’t object to another examination. Just to make sure your wounds are on the mend and the dressings still hold.”

_Ah, yes._ That was Merlin, persistent to the last. An admirable trait, but not one Gwaine wished to encounter now.

“I’m grateful for your concern, but I can manage that well enough myself.” The knight tugged at his shirt again, trying to be discrete. It did little to curb that insistent thing within him, but his restless hands could not keep still. The knight fought the urge to glance over his shoulder where freedom lay. Instead, he met Merlin’s eyes and fixed his gaze there. “All that time traveling alone was useful for something, you know.”

“But you are not alone anymore.”

Now Gwaine looked away from Merlin’s large, sincere eyes. He pursed his lips, chewing on the inside of one cheek. Inhaling, the knight looked back and set his shoulders, dropping his arms with a well-hidden wince. “I have things to do, places to be.”

“And I can help you with them, whatever they are, juts come back with me first.” 

“Shouldn’t you be waiting hand and foot on Arthur?” Gwaine tried, “Surely he’s standing about helplessly cursing your absence by now. I shudder to think of the punishment he is devising for your tardiness. No doubt there are scores of unwashed boots in your future.” 

“I’ll just tell him that Gaius sent me to retrieve you back to bed.”

“ _Oh_.” Gwaine waggled his eyebrows warningly. “Is that how you want this to go?”

“This only needs to go as another peaceful meeting between friends would,” a calm voice said somewhere behind the injured man.

Gwaine turned and found Lancelot behind him. The other knight looked as noble as ever, the small studs of his scarlet jerkin catching regally in the light.

Lancelot had one hand resting on a small knife at his hip, a habit formed by most people who carried weapons. His other hand was raised in a manner meant to appease the quarrelsome, his expression gentle but as serious as it ever was. This was a man born to be a knight, the embodiment of those tales about shining heroes who rescued faery maidens from wicked men.

Gwaine grinned. “I’ll leave you two to your meeting then. Wouldn’t want to interrupt whatever grand things you mean to discuss in peace.”

The knight neatly sidestepped his comrade, ignoring Merlin’s cry of protest, and pushed on. Footsteps quickly followed him, soon joined by the steadier gait of Lancelot as Merlin divulged his mission to the man.

Bouncing off a wall as he turned a corner, Gwaine used its brief support to strengthen his legs, simultaneously increasing his pace and ducking into a less travelled hall. Both pairs of footsteps followed and so began the former vagabond’s attempt to lose his pursuers. Rapidly taking twists and turns through the corridors without any decipherable logic, Gwaine backtracked in a wide loop around the dusty passageways and then split off randomly down a new path. He bounced off walls less and less as the chase leant strength to his limbs, that itch growing in the excitement to overtake the tiredness clawing at his mind. 

At some stage, between turning down three forked corridors in quick succession and squeezing between a pile of boxes and the entrance they blocked, the footsteps grew more distant. An inaudible curse floated through the air followed by quick murmuring that faded as Merlin and Lancelot hurried off in the wrong direction. 

Having spent so long travelling alone through unhospitable places and escaping unhospitable folk, Gwaine knew well enough not to cease his fleeing then. It was only when he had walked a great distance more that he halted, taking stock of his surrounds. The corridors he had passed down had presented no fork of divided pathways since he had lost his well-intentioned pursuers. There were many corners and other turns, but they had all led to where the knight stood now.

Glancing down the dusty hallway, Gwaine contemplated his choices. A wooden door, somewhat warped by time, stood to the side offering a place of secluded respite. The former vagabond’s side was hurting sharply now and his arm had definitely known better days. Perspiration had made his clothes damp. That itch still existed inside him, making him restless and perturbed, but weariness had settled its heavier cloak atop it.

Decision made, Gwaine shuffled to the door and tried the knob. Finding it open, he slipped inside and quietly closed it behind him with a wince. When the errant knight turned, he realised he was not alone. Merlin was standing in the center of the room, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. Lancelot leaned against the window behind him.

“How-”

“I know this castle and its halls better than you,” Merlin said, shrugging.

Gwaine frowned, tensing again.

“Please hear us out,” Lancelot spoke up, hands raised again in an appeasing manner. “We do not mean to cause you distress. We are simply worried for you.”

“About what? The scratches I took in that fight?” Gwaine barked a laugh. It was sharp and short, not much like the laughter most had come to know him for.

“You lost too much blood for those to be mere scratches,” Merlin said dryly.

“Not enough to warrant this.” Gwaine waved a vague hand towards the others.

“Friends worry about friends, Gwaine,” Merlin implored, “And physicians worry for their patients. Gaius was beside himself when he found you had left your chambers, fearing that someone would find you hurt further still should your strength fail on a flight of stairs or in another equally perilous situation. A castle can be a dangerous place for accidents.”

“Well, my strength has not failed,” Gwaine returned, “I am standing now, am I not?”

True, the knight was stooped slightly despite his best efforts, his right arm tucked close to his side. Yet, a stooped back and twisted arm was not a sign of defeat. What mattered in a fight was keeping one’s feet, and Gwaine had not yet lost his. 

“As delightful as this conversation has been…”

Gwaine turned to leave, but the door behind him would not open. The knight cursed under his breath. _Of all the times for it to get jammed-_

Spinning back around, the man caught the end of a shared glance between Merlin and Lancelot, a small smile fading quickly from the latter’s lips.

“Would you like me to try?” Lancelot asked when he became aware of Gwaine’s stare.

Gwaine’s lips thinned, but there was nothing to say. He could not engage in a heartier attempt to shift the door without appearing a mad fool, nor would he be able to outrun the two now trapped with him should he somehow succeed. Instead, the knight edged around where Merlin stood in the small room as Lancelot edged around the other side.

One he reached the door, Lancelot tried the doorknob, then rammed himself against the door. The wood did not budge, and the knight drew back rubbing his shoulder.

“It appears we are locked in,” Lancelot said almost too cheerily. Gwaine was not surprised. He leaned against the sole window to room, looking out, foot tapping restlessly beneath him.

The sky was a clear blue that day, with scarcely a cloud to mar it. Windows were thrown open all along the castle walls, the nearest being directly below. Ladies fanned themselves in the breeze and servants hung halfway out as they pointed to all manner of things in the courtyards and roads below.

Across the room, Lancelot shifted. “Talking would pass the time.”

Gwaine raised his head to fix the other knight with a glare. Lancelot rubbed the back of his neck and sat in a dusty chair he fell through not moments later with a cry. Indeed, the entire room was filled with dust covered furniture that had seen better days. Perhaps it had been used to store some deceased Lord’s possessions in ages past and had been forgotten about in the bustle of daily life.

Merlin, who had stifled a laugh at Lancelot’s attempts to remove himself from the remains of the chair, focused his attention back on Gwaine. “I-” the servant started, then seemed to rethink his approach. “It’s hard to tell when something is off with you because you don’t complain like Arthur does when he’s injured. I swear, he stubs a toe and all he does is whine. It’s Merlin this and Merlin that and ‘Merlin, I need you to reinforce my boots or knock down that damn wall, I don’t care which just get it done’. As if I’ve nothing better to do than punish a wall for assaulting him!”

Gwaine lifted an eyebrow, not taking the easy bait.

“Something is off with you, Gwaine,” Merlin said more plainly.

“Of course something is off, Merlin,” Gwaine replied with a vicious smile. “I’m stuck in this room with the two of you.”

“Should it not be us saying that?” Lancelot remarked, “After all, it will be Merlin and myself Elyan pities when we do get out of here to tell our tale.”

Gwaine regarded him, unamused. “Is that so? I did not ask you to herd me here like a sheep.”

“You were the one running from us,” Merlin said.

“And you were lying in wait,” Gwaine returned.

Merlin frowned. “As I said, I know these halls better than you and could guess where you would go. That corridor you took only ends in one place and it was not too bold a guess to think you might stop in the first room you saw. Because you are injured, Gwaine,” the servant said at the other man’s raised eyebrows, “You cannot deny that fact.”

“I have not tried,” Gwaine said in some semblance of the truth. Both Merlin and Lancelot looked unimpressed.

“You are injured, Gwaine,” Merlin repeated, tone as serious as his expression, “And you were placed in the care of Gaius and myself as healers. We were the ones to stich you up even as the blood loss made you paler and paler, to tend to you as a fever held you in its grasp, to stave off infection and coax you back to consciousness that Camelot might not be less one of its best knights. Gaius does not give instructions for the sheer joy of it, certainly not to those whom fate deems his patients. I have seen men crippled for life because they failed to heed his words and set about their duties before they were judged ready to return. Always they thought they knew better and always they were proved wrong.”

Silence hung prominent as the three men breathed, letting the weight of the words settle as respect for their meaning obliged them to do.

“Do you trust our judgement in healing?” Merlin asked at last.

Gwaine looked away, the fervour inside him doused somewhat by the rebuke. “I suppose…”

Merlin smiled then and titled his head, his expression softening to the same as that he wore whenever he found himself talking sense in the face of Gwaine’s antics. “Come on, Gwaine. You can’t say no to the chance to laze around indefinitely with every excuse not to do Arthur or Leon’s bidding.”

Gwaine smiled too but it was sharper and darker than Merlin’s. The fervour, so close to being snuffed completely, flared up once again. “Oh, but I can.”

His friend looked taken aback and more than a little hurt. A twinge of guilt struck the knight, but he regretted not his words. Instead, a strange ache gripped his heart as Merlin’s smile fell and a frown burrowed itself into the younger man’s brow. Bewilderment clouded the servant’s eyes. It was not an uncommon sight when it came to Gwaine. Many people thought they knew who and what he was, and many people had failed to understand.

Merlin was his friend, his first true friend in a long, long time. _But it seems you are no exception,_ Gwaine thought with a sombre air. 

The former vagabond drew his slumping figure tall. “I wanted freedom from that room so I left it and I do not intend to return anytime soon, no matter what you say.”

“It does you no good wandering about with your injuries. You need to heal,” Lancelot said.

“I’ve wandered about dank forests with worse,” Gwaine returned, “And yet I still managed to survive long enough to meet Merlin and our esteemed Prince to save their hides in that fateful tavern brawl.”

“And I have seen bravado lead to the downfall of many a great man.”

“As luck would have it, I am not a great man. I’m a decent one at best who knows his limits well. These aches and pains are part and parcel of a wander’s life, and they will heal just as well outside a bed as in it. I’ve done without healers before and I don’t need you or Merlin or Gaius to mother me now.”

“Is what we’re asking so burdensome?” Merlin asked. 

Gwaine turned back to the window, his eyes seeking an explanation he could not find.

Merlin spoke again, softer now. “All we are asking is that you allow us to alleviate our own worry by taking it slow these next few days, that you alleviate Gaius’ worry by following his well-informed advice.”

“You would have to find a way out of here first,” Gwaine replied, avoiding any real answer, “As it is, we’re trapped.”

Merlin and Lancelot glanced at each other before the latter shrugged and stepped up towards the door again. Peering round Merlin’s shoulder, Gwaine watched as Lancelot tried the doorknob once, twice, three times with his shoulder as support before the door popped open with a mocking ease.

“What do you know,” Lancelot said with a grin.

“Yes, what do you know,” Gwaine said, not looking at Merlin, “Figures all it would take was a harder push.”

There was an uneasy silence as the reality of the open door sunk in. Gwaine’s shoulders unconsciously drew further in on themselves, twitching his arm and making him wince as his reserves of energy at long last faltered in the face of his only choice.

“Gwaine-” Merlin started at last before a shake of the head from Lancelot deterred him. 

“After you, Merlin,” the valiant knight said. “We will not be long behind.”

It said much that the servant heeded Lancelot’s words without any further of his own. It was a trust not even Gwaine had earned, or Arthur who alone had known and befriended Merlin for far longer than any of the knights.

When the servant had exited, Lancelot held the door half closed behind him. The man turned to his comrade in arms, one of the handful of knights he had fought beside to retake Camelot and sat beside at a table with no true head. A moment of silence passed between the two as Gwaine stared back, face bereft of the easy joy it so often held.

“It is hard to be bedridden,” Lancelot said at last, “I know. We have all been there, but know it makes you no less a man for it, no less a knight, not in my eyes or anyone else’s.”

Gwaine looked away, unable to maintain his gaze, and his eyes fell over his shoulder to the window and what laid beyond. The blue sky, the windows, and the scenes below.

“I do not know if it is the injury that troubles you,” Lancelot continued in earnest, “But know you do not need to carry the burden alone, whatever it is. I am willing to listen and will carry whatever it is to my grave, should that be your wish. I am certain there are many others you call friend who would do the same.”

Another pause, another silence, and it ate at Gwaine with fervour. The blue sky remained open through the window, large and unhindered by any sort of barrier or will. Lancelot shifted, leaning more of his weight on the side where he held the door. He smiled in sympathy.

“Sometimes it is better to surrender, particularly when it is to the well-meaning concern of one’s friends. The sooner you rest, the sooner you can heal and be rid of all of this.” 

Gwaine closed his eyes and inhaled. Opening them, he regarded the knight across from him. Lancelot’s words hung in the air, as firm as his stance. Merlin’s shadow darkened the doorway. His arm ached, as did his side, dull throbbing rebuking him for his reckless flight. The thought of his stone room and its vast bed sprang to his mind and in its wake a choice was made.

“Lead on then,” Gwaine said, ducking his head and slumping his shoulders in the picture of defeat. When Lancelot came to shore him up on one side with a friendly shoulder, the man brushed him off, sending a pleading smile in the other knight’s direction. Lancelot, sympathetic of the plight of wounded pride, gave a reassuring smile in return and stepped out of the room after Merlin to allow Gwaine time to gather himself.

Gwaine closed his eyes, drew in a breath and slammed the door shut behind the pair of them. Wedging several chairs beneath the knob, the man pulled on that incessant itch to spur him in a dash to the window and out of it in a fluid series of movement. His torso and arms protested, as did his weary legs, but the former vagabond had fought through worse. Gripping the windowsill, Gwaine curbed the mad desire to fling himself through the air to feel the freedom of flight, instead looking down to the ground a good distance below and then the closer open window he had seen before.

There was a shout from Merlin that carried above the other shouts he and Lancelot had loosed when the door had closed, followed by the sound of what must be chairs thrown back to splinter on the walls. Gwaine tightened his lips and his resolve, ignored his burning arm and middle, and dropped stone by stone to his path of freedom. Heavy footsteps stumbled into the room above him, no doubt Lancelot charging through the door.

The escaping knight reached the open window at the same time as the last echoes of the door rebounding of a wall faded. He slipped through it and dragged it closed as two dark heads popped over the edge of the one above.

“ _Gwaine!_ ”

The man of concern heaved in each breath as he sat slumped beneath the windowsill. His heart was racing from the exertion and his limbs shook in kind. Conscious of the anger in Merlin’s voice, Gwaine dragged himself up again and, in doing so, glanced out the window glass towards the endless horizon.

The shadow of a bird flew across it.

It called to him.

A moment passed and Gwaine tore himself away, looking more carefully around at his new surroundings.

“Huh.” He was in Leon’s rooms.

They were fuller than he had imagined the First Knight’s would be, filled with trinkets one would expect to find on the shelves of a Lady. _Is Leon courting…_ But it was not his place to pry.

Absently pressing a hand against the wound on his torso, Gwaine thought through his options. Merlin and Lancelot would not doubt be in pursuit of him via less dramatic pathways than his. Eventually Gaius would obtain what he wanted, Gwaine back in his rooms under the physician’s scolding supervision, but the knight was not yet prepared to give in yet. The outside called to him. His nose and cheeks were still red from the exhilaration of the crisp wind that blew about the castle’s towers, a sensation that was as addictive as certain plant concoctions he had seen in his travels.

Outside was where he wished to be. Outside, away from the stifling castle and its insistent people and their persistent demands. It would mean avoiding everyone who searched for him in getting to and through the castle entrance, but that would prove not so difficult a feat. Already his feet were recalling the halls he would need to traverse, the stairs and the stone-laid rooms they would cross. The knight needed better clothing, however, in part to keep attention away from him and his somewhat disheveled form.

Gwaine looked down at his shirt, grimacing when he saw a spot of red amongst the grey. Tenderly he probed the offending area near his stomach, lifting the shirt to see if the bandages were redder beneath. They were not, to his relief. It seemed he had only aggravated the wound in a minor fashion. The bandages on his right arm, however, were less forgiving when he checked and indicated some of Gaius’ stitching may have come loose. Still, the bleeding was very sluggish and already slowing further as Gwaine watched.

Scanning Leon’s rooms again, the knight’s eyes alighted on a rag which he snagged from the desk and bound round his arm. A jerkin was laid out on the bed, but it was a deep red and embroidered at the edges, far to fancy for both Gwaine’s taste and needs. Instead, the man moved to wardrobe and pulled it open. This too held fancy clothing, clearly that of one who was a Lord and used to being so, but to Gwaine’s delight it also held several plainer garments including a brown coat no doubt used for hunting. 

“This will do nicely,” Gwaine said aloud, taking the coat and donning it. With Leon being the giant he was – though still nowhere near Percival’s looming bulk – the coat was too long in the sleeves and length. Gwaine frowned at this, but just pushed up the sleeves, undoing his belt and re-looping it around his waist so the image he portrayed looked less ridiculous.

Task completed, he made to stride from the room, but paused at the table where parchment and ink laid. A twinge of guilt assailing him, the knight quickly jotted down a note in his scrawling handwriting, advising Leon of that which he borrowed and promised to return.

“Now to freedom,” Gwaine said to himself, adding a bounce to his step and wincing when it jostled his arm.

~ ~ ~

As he had anticipated, leaving the castle was no more difficult than leaving the house of a woman whose father and brothers believed she should be kept locked away from all pleasures in life until marriage. A great many guards had recognised him, but it seemed neither Gaius nor Merlin’s reach extended that far. Gwaine had stepped out into the citadel as just another man going about his day.

Indeed, from a glance of him and his oversized coat, bereft of any embellishments or obvious signs of wealth, it appeared as though he really were any other man and not a knight who had so recently felled half a dozen others. People did not move aside as they did when he wore Camelot red and Gwaine preferred it that way. He passed through the bustle of people seen but unrecognised, uncaring and unhurried, though weakness beset him from time to time forcing him to pause and rest against what wall or store he could find.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead in one such moment, Gwaine at last conceded to the wisdom behind Gaius’ words.

Still, he was calmer now than before. Not completely settled nor free of that itch, but it had dulled somewhat since he had reached the markets. Casting his eyes up, the former wanderer watched the sky once more, lazily tracking a bird that glided across it. His feet readied to follow, but Gwaine stayed them. The sky was vast and unending and his feet, once started, had a tendency to keep going and going.

A presence halted itself to his right, leaning back against the same wall Gwaine had. The knight did not speak in greeting nor did the other request one, the Prince of Camelot fading into the background as he let the world he was to rule pass around him undisturbed.

For a long while, the two men watched that bird. Street urchins ran by them and were gifted royal coin. An argument broke out between two store vendors which was then broken up by lingering guards. Children cried and women laughed. Details of love and loss and mundane tidings were shared between those who saw each other more days than not. 

When at last Arthur shifted, the words he spoke were as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun. “Where’s Merlin?”

“In the tavern.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Of course he is. I suppose that is where you were heading too?”

Gwaine offered him a grin. “You know me, never can keep away from the promise of a good drink.”

Arthur laughed with Gwaine, but his blue gaze remained erringly pinned to bird above them. He took a moment to reply and when he did, it was as nonchalant as before. “I have missed you in the training field, if only because you take it far less seriously than any of my other knights. It is good to laugh sometimes. You will not tell the others I have said as such, of course.”

“They wouldn’t believe me if I did,” the knight answered with a smile. “Your dour face every morning will see to that.”

Arthur chuckled and lightly knocked feet with Gwaine. A sombre air hung over him, however, and it dulled the loudness that might have otherwise rang in Arthur’s amusement.

Time passed again and Gwaine shifted uneasily in it. It was unlike Arthur to linger so calmly doing nothing, the pull of his duties as fierce as those of Merlin and any other servant of Camelot. Unspoken words clearly sat between them hidden by the lack of voice they had been given. Gwaine had always hated not knowing another’s intentions, too risky on the road when the only backup one had was themselves.

Heart beating faster, the man steadied his breath. His limbs itched to move but he stilled them in a sign of subservience and calm. Ghosts echoed in his head of pleas and blood and steel, of anger and angry orders that claimed righteousness in deed. Of old men with aching knees and the unmarked forest graves they rested in. Yet, Gwaine stifled these thoughts with the sharp edge of a mind waiting in anticipation.

His shoulders tensed in a rigid line. The leather adorning them rustled mutely and a sleeve came to hang below the knuckles of one hand.

“Where did you find the coat?” the Prince asked conversationally.

“I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed? Like you borrowed your horse and armour for that tournament?” Arthur grinned wryly.

Gwaine shrugged. “Needed both to enter.”

“And you shall have both again for the next tournament without question.” The words were a statement said with the same inarguable certainty Gwaine had heard from seers that took no interest in frivolous shows.

The knight looked at his sworn liege and the sharp profile the Prince’s face cut as his gaze remained fixed straight ahead. Gwaine’s slightly shorter stature and somewhat stooped position meant his eyes drew upwards and so they caught the crown of sunbeams around Arthur’s blond head. Gwaine did not put much stock in divinity, but he knew of magic even if he could not wield and it seemed the sight was an omen of greater things to come.

“You seem certain I would participate,” Gwaine said at last, a touch too slow on the reply.

“Why would I not be?” Arthur returned with an easy confidence that too often bordered arrogance as well.

Gwaine looked away, casting his eyes to where two men haggled over the price of grain with an old woman. He exhaled and shifted, drawing his right arm closer to his chest. “What brings you to this part of town?”

“I was visiting a few old friends,” Arthur said. “One of the nursemaids who first cared for me is not long for this world.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be,” Arthur replied, a small, sad but fond smile gracing his lips. “She is old and set, I think, to depart this realm for the next. Her family are with her and I have not seen her happier. It will be a good passing.”

“But loss is loss all the same.” Gwaine regarded his Lord with a sideways look, brown eyes holding unfathomable depths of knowledge that could pick apart a man in an instant. “The tavern is not far from here.”

“And if I need a drink, you will be the first I ask,” Arthur answered, “But for now I think work is what I need to take my mind of things.” He inhaled and closed his eyes, before opening them again after a pause. “How do you fair, Gwaine? What loss eats at your heart?”

The knight’s head turned sharply to more fully face the other man. Sometimes Arthur’s perception seemed almost inhuman in nature. Yet, no inhuman thing Gwaine had met could so easily read a man in passing.

The knight offered no answer and Arthur pushed for none. Instead, he continued his own line of speech.

“Your recent injuries seem to be well on their way to healing, It is good to see you about, though your pallor is cause for some concern.” At last Arthur turned to face his knight, smiling somewhat apologetically as he did. “It is time you returned to Gaius, if only because I will be unable to get any work done until Merlin has you sequestered and secured away in the hands of his mentor.”

Gwaine huffed a laugh, though the humour sat wrongly in him. “Asked you to help him, did he?”

“That he did, though less asked than commanded. Sometimes I think he forgets which of us is to be king.”

“Is that not why you keep him on?” Gwaine said. Arthur smiled in acknowledgement.

“It is one of the many reasons people have speculated, though a new one I must confess,” he said. “Will you come willingly?”

“Do I have a choice?” Gwaine asked.

Arthur did not answer, though his movement was answer enough. Stepping forward, the Prince turned to offer Gwaine his hand, his face set with an eyebrow cocked waiting for the knight to join him.

Gwaine sighed. “It’s Leon’s coat,” he said at last, his own answer to a question that had not been asked. “I left a note in return.”

“I am sure he will thank you for it.”

Unable to stall any longer, Gwaine accepted his fate. He pushed off the wall, stepping forward, and his legs failed him at last. Arthur’s shoulder found his own without fanfare to keep him on his feet. Gwaine’s teeth clenched together but he did not protest the aid from the Prince and together they began the trek to his impending doom.

~ ~ ~

The sun was well above the citadel by the time Gwaine and Arthur reached Gaius’ chambers where the physician did his work. The door was quickly thrown open at Arthur’s knock and Gaius himself greeted the pair with a deep furrow on his brow.

“Sir Gwaine,” he said crisply and hauled the knight inside. “So kind of you to grace me with your presence.”

Gwaine, for once, said nothing, wise enough not to provoke the physician’s anger further. Arthur smiled, perhaps in an attempt to abate the old man’s ire, and sounded off a pleasant greeting.

“I thank you for finding my wayward patient, Sire,” Gaius said, “And I am generous enough not to ask where you found him.”

Gwaine winced and Arthur laughed, his earlier mood better hidden than before. “If you wish to provide me a reward,” he said, “Then a woman in a residence near the marketplace has need of your pain relievers. One of my personal guards should know the way.”

Gaius studied the Prince then inclined his head, saying, “I will see to it once I have finished here.”

“My thanks,” Arthur replied. He paused to study Gwaine. “Once you are finished here, see me in my chambers. I could use your company as I work.”

The half-order brought with it a sense of relief to the injured knight, enforcing a limitation on how long Gaius could scold him for. With luck, he would be gone before Merlin arrived. If it brought on other feelings as well, he ignored them.

The Prince clapped Gwaine once on the shoulder of his good arm and bade the others farewell. “I will instruct the servants to let Merlin know he can cease his search for you should they see him,” he called over his shoulder as he left. “Lord knows I have a long list of other things for him to spend his time on, such as returning Sir Leon’s coat to him.”

A moment later Gwaine was alone with the one he had sought to avoid in the first place. He stared at Gaius and the Gaius stared back at him. The old physician gave in first, tutting his disappointment as he began to bustle about the knight’s injuries. Gwaine closed his eyes.

His belt came off first, then the coat he wore which drew a wince from the man as he helped Gaius remove it. The physician’s eyebrows raised as he took sight of the spots of blood on the shirt near his stomach and further still at the rag tied round his arm.

“It seems you have torn my stiches,” Gaius said. His voice was cool, though his hands were gentle as they checked first the wound on his torso and then his arm, evidently judging the latter to be of more concern.

“Only some,” Gwaine answered more casually than he felt, “And only on my arm I’d wager, one of the hardest places to keep them in.”

“That is what rest is for,” Gaius rebuked.

The knight shifted on the bench as the physician undid the dressings round his arm. “What can I say? I fancied a walk.”

“In your condition that was unwise, as evidenced by your arm,” Gaius said, jerking his head to where the wound still bled sluggishly where his stiches had torn by the edge. “You should not have gone.”

“No?” Gwaine raised an eyebrow. “I went walking off well enough after my shoulder was injured in the melee. No soft bed to rest in, no kindly physicians such as yourself to give advice, just me, my sword and the bog I encountered near two days from Camelot’s forbidden borders.”

Gaius frowned. “Those were exceptional circumstances. I would not have let you go so soon after such blood loss shortly after you had begun recovering from already losing a concerning amount of blood-”

“But your hands were tied by the King.” Gwaine spat the title with no shortage of contempt. Gaius gave no response. 

Silence sat heavily atop the two. It bowed Gwaine’s shoulders beneath it. His fingers gripped the edge of the bench he sat on tightly, turning his knuckles white. This was only in part due to the handful of stiches Gaius was putting back in. The knight winced with each one, but made no sound and Gaius soon clapped him on his good shoulder to indicate he had finished.

Gwaine inhaled sharply through his teeth then inspected his unbound arm. The sight of the neat lines of knotted string took some of the ire out of him, leaving him more weary than anything else and longing to establish peace with one he hoped he might call a friend. “I have to say your stitching is better than mine. Care to mend a few trousers I’ve torn?”

Gaius exhaled a puff of air, though it was hard tell if it was a restrained sort of laugh. Old hands made quick work of binding the knight’s arm, before moving to unbind the soiled bandages around his torso.

“You are a knight of Camelot now,” the physician said, not seeing the frown these words brought to his patient. “Whatever the King says, your care is my responsibility. And there are servants aplenty aside from me who can mend your trousers.”

Gwaine huffed noncommittedly, holding himself still as Gaius rebound his arm. The old man tutted about his pallor, forcing a drink of some unknown concoction into his hands to drink that it might restore some colour to his cheeks.

Gaius bustled around the room as Gwaine drank, the latter pulling a face at the bitter taste on his tongue. He was half certain that Gaius had deliberately made the potion so in punishment for his disobedience. Merlin had complained of similar treatment often enough for Gwaine to at least suspect it.

It was in half flight from the taste that Gwaine retreated to his thoughts. Many swirled within his head of faces and orders and things he had done, but one specific image kept returning despite his best to cast it from his mind.

“Do your knees ever ache in the rain?”

The words cut through the room as blatantly as a knife, though the tone behind them was indecipherable at best. Gwaine’s shoulders hunched in as the old physician turned to regard him with steady eyes. 

“It is my shoulders more than my knees,” Gaius said at last, “Too long spent bent over a mortar and pestle, I think. But where does your question come from? It is not like you to ask such things.”

The knight did not answer, merely look at his now empty cup. In the wake of his silence, Gaius came to hold Gwaine’s face between his hands, staring the man deep into the eyes before sighing and letting him be.

“I shall not keep you from the company of Arthur any longer,” the physician said, turning away, “But we will talk later in depth about the action of walking and my patients who wish to take them.”

Gwaine set aside his cup and said his thanks, ignoring the warning that underlaid the last of the old man’s words. His hand had only just alighted on the door’s handle, however, when Gaius spoke again.

“I find it does well to talk about what ails one’s mind. It tends to relieve the troubles in one’s mind.”

Gwaine’s eyes darted back to Gaius as the old man set about cleaning the implements on his table. The knight did not respond as he left, feet itching to go onwards but tied to a path that ended with a waiting Prince and a talk he was not sure he wished to have.

~ ~ ~

Arthur’s chambers were as grand and lived in as ever, cluttered with hunting gear and weapons and the laundry Merlin had yet to put away. Arthur himself sat at a desk beyond his richly draped bed, papers strewn all about him as he wrote on some important document with far too many figures for Gwaine to care.

Gwaine himself had scarcely entered when the Prince greeted him and gestured to an empty chair set out across from him. Gwaine had stood in resistance of Arthur’s will for several moments before his protesting body overrode the stubbornness of his mind and seated itself quite comfortably in the lavish thing. Now the two passed time in easy conversation, dancing around all matters more serious than the cost of sleeves for Percival’s chainmail.

“It’s not so much the expensive as his preference to go without,” Gwaine was saying with a lazy wave of his hand. His foot was tapped a steady beat, but both had been ignoring it for some time. “Not that I can blame him with arms like those. Prime example of power, he is.”

“Not all power lies in such obvious strength,” Arthur countered absently from his desk.

“But it is the power most people recognise,” Gwaine returned, “Strong arms, strong jaw, strong back. Those can carry a man – or woman – far in life no matter what their standing was at the start.”

“What of bravery and kindness?”

“You mean recklessness and foolishness?” Gwaine laughed, then sobered as he thought more seriously on the matter. “They are good things to have,” the knight conceded, “But there are folk enough who are both craven and cruel that to be brave and kind is not enough to be recognised as an equal.”

Arthur made a sound of interest in the back of his throat. “So you would argue strength is the better of the three to possess, then?”

Gwaine shrugged, taking care not to disturbed his newly stitched arm. “It is the language all folk speak. That much I know from my travels.”

“And I from the blasted courts.” Arthur chuckled, though his focus strayed not from his work. “I must say, it has been a source of great amusement to see those courtiers who would place strength above all else try to make sense of my less than subservient manservant over the years.”

“Merlin does have a way of confounding people,” Gwaine said, smiling fondly at the thought of his friend.

“Irritatingly so sometimes,” Arthur said, “But it does make each day refreshing. I would be bored out of my mind if it were not for his antics to break up the mundaneness of taxes and speeches and farmers arguing over who the owner of a chicken is.”

“That’s because you have no eye for the wonderous,” Gwaine answered in a teasing way. “There are all sorts of strange things when you take the time to peek behind the curtain or beyond the trodden paths. The heady scent of wild flowers, the strange judgment of a boldly marked cat, the songs and games of children, and the trinkets of merchants from far off lands. Then, when you go further than the settled lands, there are more wonderous things still,” Gwaine said, drifting into happy memory.

The sights he had seen in his travels were beyond description in some respects. Walking trees and fireflies that flew in giant hordes. Hermits who shared the secrets they had studied in rock and pool. Once a giant skeleton of some dead, fantastic beast, and too a witch who would move the clouds to paint all sorts of things.

These were sights Gwaine did not think would be so welcome in the halls of Camelot, with its harsh stance on magic. So many wonderous things dismissed, though he had seen, in the far corners of the less savory parts of the citadel, shadows in which quick hands conjured simple lights for the simple joy of children. Where merchants told tales that would have their tongues labelled traitors and worse. So many trinkets passed through hands unknowing of their worth, relics and runes of old lore ignored for the new laws of the land. 

“I have seen many great things,” the knight settled on saying at last.

Arthur grinned. “I doubt you ever saw anything or anyone like Merlin.”

That too was true, and not at once, though it drew a laugh from Gwaine. Merlin was Merlin, kind and brave and quick of mind, a wiry strength to him where other men would have faltered long before. His tongue could strip the ego of a man right from him, though it was not the only tongue Gwaine had known that could achieve such a feat. Yet a fate hung over the younger man in a way Gwaine had rarely seen.

“You are right in that respect,” he said, stroking his beard in thought.

“How did you get away from him earlier today?” Arthur asked, “He mentioned he almost had you and I find he is quite…determined when he puts his mind to matters regarding the health of his friends.”

Gwaine sighed, leaning back in his chair with a wince and placing his feet on Arthur’s table. “Lancelot and your relentless manservant trapped me in a room I don’t think has been used for years. I tricked them into leaving, locked the door behind them, then climbed out the window and into Leon’s rooms before they could reach me.”

It was only when the lack of a quill’s scratching registered that Gwaine looked up to where Arthur stared at him with wide eyes and a somewhat concerned expression.

“You climbed out a window in your condition?” the Prince asked sharply.

“I’m injured, not decrepit,” Gwaine replied, “Any other could have done the same. Would you say otherwise?”

Arthur was silent.

Gwaine looked away. There were times, for all his experience, when no answer was worse than one.

The quill’s scratching started up again rather methodically. It was not long before Gwaine found his eyes straying to the windows and what laid beyond them and, indeed, beyond Camelot’s walls. There was the bustle of people, talking and singing and cursing, living their lives in the shadow of a castle and its king. Then there was the green, endless scores of it lining the horizon from one end to the other. Flocks of birds fluttered from the trees. Wind stirred the leaves in a merry dance. Somewhere within there was wonder and wild, untamed and unblemished sights few people had ever seen.

Gwaine thought of his travels and past days of hardship and freedom. He thought old men and of the bandits and their angry, hurting words.

“Have you found the reason behind why we were attacked?” Gwaine asked the air.

The quill paused again and the knight looked back to Arthur, noting the tightness of his fist and expression.

“No,” the Prince admitted at last, “I have not, though not for lack of trying. The two bandits your patrol captured refuse to speak other than to curse the name of the King and his law. Gaius identified several of their blades as ensorcelled.”

_So I was right._ It was a passing thought.

“Lucky, then, they did not do more damage,” Gwaine said aloud.

“Indeed,” Arthur answered, a troubled expression coming to rest on his face. The man exhaled heavily drawing Gwaine’s attention to him. “I should not surprised,” the Prince said, “It seems as though magic is at the root of every trouble this kingdom faces. One might say it is a curse upon us all.”

Gwaine frowned, looking back towards the window. “Why must magic be evil?”

“Because that is the way of things,” Arthur replied.

Gwaine glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, then leaned back against the chair and exhaled heavily. There were many words he could say, some already forming sentences in his head. He thought of bandits and servants and the vast score of wonders he had been blessed to see in his travels. Tugging at his shirt and the bandages beneath, he sighed again, shifting in the chair so his feet were on the ground. Not a moment later he stood, moving towards the window as though it held all the answers to the troubled questions he had.

“I swore my oath to you,” Gwaine said at last, turning back to where Arthur was watching him once more, quill paused yet again in the air.

“Yes,” Arthur answered with an incline of his head, “And I am grateful for it.”

“I did not swear to serve your father.”

It was one of the stark differences between Gwaine and the other knights of the Round Table, as the common folk had taken to calling them. It was not a fact many of Camelot’s nobility liked. Yet, the scholars had declared it viable, for a Prince might choose his own champion independent of the King, and Gwaine had not knelt to Uther as the other knights had done. Now he wielded that fact like a challenge, a glut of unspoken sentiment the force of strength behind it.

Camelot’s Prince put aside his quill at last. Arthur studied the man he would call a friend, clasping his hands together and placing them under his chin. At long last he asked, “Do you regret your oath?”

Gwaine did not answer. He knew not what to say.

Arthur swallowed, his eyes drifting away as his focus turned to the thoughts inside his head. When he spoke again, his words were deliberate and slow. “You are a good man, Gwaine, and I am honoured that you have and would choose to follow me. I understand that the life you led before this was vastly different, and I cannot begin to understand what that life was like. I know your opinions of my father. You made those very clear in the days after we first met.” Both men smiled at this, a shared joke more than anything. Arthur sobered quickly, however, and Gwaine followed him in kind. “I also know your opinions of my father are not limited to him alone,” the Prince continued, “I would not chastise you for your views on nobility, though I hope to prove to you that not all of them are true. Yet, I can understand the struggle it takes to submit yourself to one you would not think to ever submit yourself to, to give them that power over you to wield as they will.”

Gwaine straightened in his seat, gaze fixed unerringly on the other. “Who did you submit to?” he asked.

Arthur gave a wry smile. “To a sorcerer and a curse begotten from my slaying of a unicorn. To a woman who fought and defeated me as a knight, though in the end proved herself untrustworthy and an enemy of Camelot. To Guinevere to forego my pride that another man might take credit for my deeds.”

The mention of the castle maid brought a softer smile to the Prince’s lips and Gwaine smiled at this in turn.

“I believe I will have cause to submit to a great many more people in the times to come,” Arthur continued, “Sometimes it is the only way forward lest we lead ourselves to destruction.” He paused, regarding the man before him with a gaze both clear and perceptive. “The fight with the bandits has disturbed you. I wish to know why, should you wish to share it.”

Gwaine sighed.

“I’ve killed before,” the knight said at last, “As you know full well.” He paused, thought and the words came to him. “It is different, though, to kill for someone under the weight of an oath you have sworn. It was your order that saw us there on rumours of their presence and your order that called for their end one way or another. I have seen men rise and fall in following orders, commit atrocities in the name of many a king. Not to say my own conscience is clean. In troubled times coin enough will see a man at war or hunting down one who turned his home against him, but I would like to think I’ve some standard by which I could judge which orders were good and which were not. I could walk away,” he said, and it seemed a freeing of truth. “Oaths are trickyer than coin to break with.”

“Aye,” Arthur agreed, “They are indeed.”

The man sat for while, his blue eyes unfocused once again as he pondered on what Gwaine had said. The knight wondered what memories were trekking through Arthur’s mind, what oaths he had sworn and what actions he regretted. Gwaine shifted where he stood, leaning back against the wall as a wave of exhaustion struck him. Some days the change all seemed too much.

“Where do we go from here?” the man asked his liege.

Arthur blinked and looked at him. He inhaled, considered his words, then spoke. “A good king, or prince, listens to the advice given to them. They will make mistakes, as all men do, but from those mistakes they can learn and grow. It is tradition for knights to follow the word of their sworn lieges, though they may impart advice as they feel. Such blind loyalty, I think, would be wrong to ask of you.”

Gwaine inhaled, relieved, though only slightly. “I would not give it if you did.” 

Arthur nodded in acknowledgement, sincere and serious. “I trust you to do what is right, Gwaine, and to do what is needed. You have proved that time and time again in the short time I have known you. Some might call me a fool for saying this, but they were not there on the field that day when a sentenced man defied a king for a reward that was nearly death. It is your defiance I want more than your loyalty, your fearless disobedience in the face of injustice and wrong. I need knights who can follow my orders, and I need men who can refuse them should there ever be a need.”

Gwaine listened in silence. There was a strength behind Arthur’s words that the former vagabond had rarely heard in the voice of any king, and there was a wisdom that underscored them which spoke of a future for many great things. 

“Do you trust me?” Arthur asked.

Gwaine studied the Prince with careful eyes. After a moment he inclined his head. “I do.”

Arthur smiled and inclined his head in kind. “And I will do my best not to break that trust.”

At his words, a weight seemed to lift from Gwaine’s shoulders. His wounds stilled ached but that dark doubt scratching away inside him faded back to the recesses of his mind. It was as water on a bug bite, a soothing form of relief.

The serious air in the room seemed to give way to something lighter. Both men settled back into their seats, Gwaine taking a place on the large windowsill to gander at the sights outside. Arthur’s quill began its scratching once more. Time passed and Gwaine let it, content to just sit and watch the world.

Taking a breath and closing his eyes, the Prince’s knight began to tell the Prince of the many wonderous things he had seen.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my wishes for the show is that they used Gwaine more in relation to Arthur’s arc. From the start, Gwaine openly defies authority when he considers it to be wrong, and in the lore Gawaine is said to be King Arthur’s champion. With how the character is written in the show, combining these aspects could have led to a lot of character growth for Arthur. It could have also highlighted the differences between his own rule and his father’s. 
> 
> There was so much potential with this relationship (e.g. with Gwaine’s well-travelled background, his attitude, his knowledge of magic and his potential knowledge of Merlin, he could have easily been one of the key influences in changing Arthur’s mind about it…) But alas, this, alongside an earlier magic reveal and so many other things, was not to be.


End file.
